Quite the week last week. I can’t remember any week of TNA getting more attention than that one. It seems all of the talk was about Roddy Piper’s Owen Hart comment and exactly how we can blame Russo for it. God knows Piper didn’t do anything wrong… Even if TNA and Piper both said that his comments were from him…this must still be Russo’s doing…right? Let me explain something about Vince Russo. The best way to defeat him is to ignore him. When they read the feedback about how much everyone hates him, they are only going to give him more time and let him go farther. Trust me. Just ignore him and he’ll go away.

Last week’s rundown:

Divine Storm vs. SATs: Slow and sloppy…not a good combo (1/2*)Chris Harris vs. Brian Lee: Lee isn’t very good (3/4*)Slash vs. James Storm: Excellent near falls, real fast paced match (**)Money vs. Kash vs. Maximo vs. Styles: Would have been better if Red was in Joel’s place. Still good. (***)AMW vs. Jim Mitchell: Pointless and boring…plus I don’t even think it was a match. (NR)JJ vs. Harris brothers: Way to build Harris cred when they lose a handicap match. Plus…they suck. (DUD)

That was last week…

Now it’s time for this week…

I’ve decided to use a scoring system for the previews just so everyone has an approximation of what I think about the matches. These aren’t pre-star rating about how good the match will be…but they are more of a scale for what kind of match to expect.

Here’s the scale that should explain itself:

A: Potential must-see range. Two people who are either real good or have delivered before.B: Potential good match.C: One or both workers will hold this back, but it could be entertaining.D: Not worth the time it took me to write the preview.F: Why do they hate us? Reserved for matches like Bruce vs. a woman or the Dupp Cupp type bad.

Let’s give this a try in the:

NWA TNA Week 24 preview

NWA Tag Team TitlesSlash and Brian Lee vs. Ron and Don Harris

The Harris brothers (who are now aligned with Vince Russo) won the shot at the tag team titles in a tournament a few weeks ago. It had seemed we were spared this match…but that just goes to show that the really bad booking is ALWAYS remembered. There is only one person in the match that I even remotely enjoy seeing and that’s Slash. I’d like to say that the Russo angle adds intrigue to this match…but all it really adds is outright FEAR that the Harris boys will win. They shouldn’t. Slash and Lee should hold those titles until America’s Most Wanted takes them back.

I have nothing nice to say about this match. I actually think we’ll see the Harris boys win and ruin the entire point of the great AMW vs. New Church feud. I give this match a D – sparing it from the big F because it’s an actual match and not a Bruce math or anything. But it won’t be pretty. If they’re smart they’ll keep it short. I can’t help but think that JR would love this match.

Kid Kash vs. Jorge Estrada

Estrada likes to blow the easy spots…and Kash loves to blow the big spots. It was only a matter of time before this match came to pass. When Estrada isn’t too wild he can be watchable…Kid Kash is usually watchable on his own but sometimes you have to avert your eyes for fear of him breaking his opponents neck. That’s always fun.

Kash can hold up his end…but he has never really seemed to try to do more than make himself look good as he hits his spots (some of them anyway). Estrada needs a lot of help when he’s in the ring, and Kash isn’t going to give him any. Definite spot-fest, likely a train wreck. The worst thing they can do is slow it down to try and hit their spots…that leads to boring sloppy matches rather than entertaining ones. I don’t think Estrada has a slow button though…so I’m not concerned about that. Match gets a C – since it won’t be a “good match” but it should be entertaining enough and provide a holy shit moment or two. Can’t see this match going longer than ten minutes. I really can’t see any way that Estrada wins this either, unless they are starting some kind of Kid Kash can’t win angle.

NWA Title Jeff Jarrett vs. Curt Hennig

Jarrett has been working hard and gave Ron Killings his two best matches of his career. Hennig hasn’t done much of anything for some time. They’ve fought twice before and neither one was an actual match. This time will be…so it’s up to Hennig whether or not it’s any good. Jarrett can carry him if Hennig lets him…but when is the last time you saw Hennig let someone do that?

Since it’s a title match the match should get some time and that can go either way. Either Hennig decides to cooperate and we get an old school psychology based match that is worth watching…or a complete mess where Hennig gets blown up in the first couple minutes and then doesn’t let JJ take control. I sure hope that it’s the former…but I can’t take that chance and give it any higher than a C +, mostly for JJ.

Jarrett isn’t losing the title to Hennig. That should be a forgone conclusion. Russo factor does come into play in this match since JJ is his main target. So Russo will either be running in to interfere in a decent match or a bad one. Can’t say that bothers me. It’s going to be real hard for Hennig to give enough to make this on par with the Killings matches. How sad is that?

America’s Most Wanted vs. Divine Storm

Trinity, a female spot machine who hits more often than most of the men, manages Divine Storm. Divine Storm is Quiet Storm and Chris Devine. America’s Most Wanted is Chris Harris and James Storm. AMW has continued to own the rest of the tag division when it comes to matches. These guys ARE good. Divine Storm beat the SATs last week to qualify for a title shot, but the Harris bros. won one of those first so they’ll have to wait. AMW had a good tag match against the SATs at the start of their tag title reign, and Divine Storm is certainly comparable to them. I actually think they are a little better than the SATs because their moves are a little crisper.

If AMW bring the kind of intensity to this match that they do for their matches with the New Church this match could be pretty damn good. I’m a big fan of AMW (especially James Storm who has just been awesome for the last couple of months) and I have come to expect good things from them. Divine Storm had a not so great match with the SATs last week and are obviously the weak link here. One thing that I do like about this match is the fact that Divine Storm has a title shot coming up. That means that we won’t see them get kicked around and squashed like we saw AMW do to the HotShots a few weeks back. I expect this to be a pretty competitive match that gets a decent chunk of time. Hopefully it delivers what the AMW/SAT match did. I’m giving it a B – since it has the potential to be a good tag match and AMW rules and they have proven to be able to get good matches out of similar opponents in the past.

NWA TNA X TitleJerry Lynn vs. Sonny Siaki

This match was bumped to this week due to an injury to Lynn. This will be Siaki’s first title shot of any kind. They have worked together two times previously and both matches were easily the best Siaki has had. In fact, they were pretty good. This one should be too as it will get a good amount of time and Lynn is real good when working without strict time constraints. I don’t remember what Lynn’s injury was but I’d expect Siaki to attack it during the fight. He has proven capable of doing so in the past, although he abandoned that game plan in the second match…deciding to concentrate on Lynn’s neck to set up for his finisher.

No one really likes Siaki, but don’t be surprised if he wins the title here. I don’t really care for Siaki either, but at least he has been somewhat built up rather than just winning one of the “Winner gets a title shot” matches. Due to the fact that they have worked well in the past I’m giving this match a solid B and expecting a good match here.

AJ Styles vs. Red

Styles gave Red a Styles Clash on the ramp taking him out of the 4 way X match last week. In actuality Red has suffered an injury a few days prior and the angle was run as an excuse to remove him. The bottom line is that no one really cares what the back story is for this match, they just want to see some more of what they did last time. They had a hell of a match a few weeks back. That match saw Styles win a close one after rolling through a top rope hurricanranna. This is the best match on the card by far, and should get a lot of time for that reason.

I don’t know whom they’ll put over, but I hope Red wins. I say it every week…but they still need to elevate the next tier of X division wrestlers. A win over Styles would do that for Red. I expect a hell of a match, just like last time. Had I not seen the first match I would probably give this one a B +…but I did see it so this one an A –. They raised the bar for themselves and now I expect a must-see match. This is one of those big matches that can make a good show great if they can deliver. If the rest of the card (sans tag title match) can be solid, with the AMW and Lynn matches being good…a great match from these two could make this week memorable. They’ve done it before.

And then there was Russo…

I don’t know what Russo is up to. He and B.G. James will be around I’m sure to do whatever it is they are doing. Oh…and Paul Bearer (Percy Pringle) too…

What an odd bunch that is. I expect we’ll find out more but this time they’ll leave the dead wrestlers in peace. The whole angle gets and Incomplete for being both entertaining (come on…that Athena thing was hilarious) and repulsive (Piper calling Russo a murderer in more words than that, and the Harris boys and James getting an obvious push) at the same time.

They say that Ron Killings and Tony Mamaluke will be there too in some form. Mamaluke won’t be cutting a promo in this lifetime so he’ll have some kind of a match. Killings may be doing promo duty. I thought Killings looked the part of the face last week perfectly. In fact…I think he’s a far better fit for the lead face in the Russo angle than Jarrett is.

People of note who are not on the card as of yet:

EZ Money won the damn 4 way last week and now he’s not on the card. Maybe he’ll be facing Mamaluke again…but I can’t really see that.

Brian Lawler hasn’t been seen since he “retired” a couple weeks back. I shed no tears.

Malice hasn’t been seen since he fell off the top rope. I still say they need him. Everyone else seems to disagree with me.

The SATs aren’t around this week…which is odd since they went out of there way to make the fat one look good last week.

Most importantly the Alex Winters watch is on its second week. I need my jobber boy back.

Overall the show will be made or broken by that Styles/Red match. Siaki/Lynn, AMW/Divine Storm should good, while JJ/Hennig and Kash/Estrada are far bigger question marks. And then there is Russo. If you are reading this you’ve likely already decided what you think of whatever Russo is going to do, even before he does it.